Half of him was gone, but she loved what remained
by SerenityAlecandtheMadHatter
Summary: It's after the war and George is dealing with Fred's death when Hermione helps him. Oneshot, GWHG. Might make it a longer story if people ask for it.


_**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, it's world, or it's characters. All of those belong to the amazing J.K. Rowling, and anyone she had sold the rights to. That does not include me. I do not make any profit from this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended. I only own this spin-off of her world, nothing else that is recognizable as the world or characters of Harry Potter.**_

His brother was dead. George had watched his brother's body fall, the smile leave his eyes as shock replaced it. It wasn't something easy to get over. George would never get over it. His mother never would, nor his father, brothers, or sister. George would always be missing that part of him that was impossible to replace.

It had been impossible for him to go in to work for a long time. He had left it to his employees to run the store for several months, unable to bear the thought of entering that place he and Fred once loved so much. That Fred had come up with the name for in their sixth year. That Fred had worked with him tirelessly, day after day, to make more merchandise for their beloved store.

It had seemed to haunt George with its memories of a happy time, of when they had designed the model on the front of the shop to look like George. It was something that was entirely both of them, and the store felt like a piece of his brother that was now broken, just as George was.

After the War he had lived at the Burrow for a short two weeks before he had to leave. The air of misery had been stifling. His mother's constant crying invaded his dreams, and even when she managed to keep herself from falling apart when she was cooking for them, or knitting, whenever she looked at George her eyes would fill with tears again. Sometimes George wondered if she would ever see him as simply George, her son—and not as the identical twin of the son she had lost.

He didn't even know if he could look at himself without remembering Fred. Everything was exactly the same, except for their noses were one tiny centimeter different, and then George was missing his ear from a Dark Spell while trying to save Harry. He didn't regret that. Fred had done the same thing, only he had been smart enough to dodge the bloody hexes.

Once he left the Burrow he went to Angelina. When she opened her front door and saw him she had burst into tears, and held her for nearly an hour before she stopped crying. He didn't blame her one bit. He stayed with her after that, and she was able to look at him now without seeing his brother, without thinking about Fred every second, and without tears gathering in her eyes. But she still thought about Fred more often than she did him.

The one thing that changed George after his brother's death, that kept him from wasting his life away wishing that Fred was the one who was alive instead of him… was Hermione Granger. It seemed odd to think that the girl his brother had fancied their last year at Hogwarts was the only one who could look at George without seeing his twin, without looking at Fred in her mind.

He was at the Burrow for Sunday dinner, something his mother required every family member—plus Fleur, Harry and Hermione—attend every week, but something he rarely did. After the meal was over, George was ready to floo back to Angelina's, unable to stand the way his family looked at him every time he sat down at the table when Hermione came up to him, her expression unreadable.

"George, can I talk to you for a moment?" She asked, and George hesitated a moment before nodding. He didn't want to be there, causing everyone's misery, but there was something different In the way Hermione looked at him, in the way she spoke. He couldn't place it, but it made him follow her up the stairs to the bedroom that he and Fred had once shared.

He took a glance at the double beds, still sitting there, unused, before turning to look at Hermione, his hands in his pockets. She bit her lip in uncharacteristic nervousness, and George waited impassively for her to speak, to end this so that he could get back to his wallowing in grief peacefully.

"He's a part of you, you know." She said suddenly.

George looked at her, then at the ground, swallowing roughly before replying. "I know." He didn't need to be reminded of how useless he was without Fred, how _inadequate_. Nobody said it but they were all thinking it. They were thinking that Fred had completed the duo, and that without him… George wasn't anyone.

"But he isn't you." She continued, taking one small step towards him, her arms crossed over her chest.

At this, George looked up at her. His eyebrows creased into a frown as he studied her. She still seemed amazingly calm, collected. Somehow different from the Hermione he and Fred knew. "I know." George repeated, watching her almost warily.

"You haven't gone back to your joke shop." Hermione stated matter-of-fact.

He couldn't help but wonder where this was going. "I haven't been able to go back." George said slowly, turning to look out of the window at the green, grassy lawn. A garden gnome ran across the ground to his hole and George remembered throwing them with Fred, and a lump formed in his throat. "It's his shop as much as mine." He added softly.

Hermione was silent for several seconds before she spoke again. "Then run it for him."

That simple sentence made George start, turning around to face her, but before he could speak she continued.

"Fred's dead. But his memory doesn't have to die with him. All of these people, when they look at you, they see Fred…" She looked away from him and closed her eyes for a brief moment before taking a deep breath and continuing. "But that isn't because they don't see you. It's because they're trying to find some way to hold on to him, to keep him alive with them…"

She looked straight at him now, her face determined in a very Hermione-like expression, and George stared at her, unable to tear his eyes away as she absorbed what she was saying. He came to wonder just how Hermione had felt about his brother—had she, perhaps…. Loved him? For some reason that thought made dark coils of something writhe in his stomach, and he swallowed hard to try and get rid of it.

"The joke shop is yours now, George. But it still represents who Fred is; who _both _of you are." She took a slow step forward to where they were only a few inches apart and looked up at him, her gaze intense, almost like she was willing him to understand something.

"You… you loved him." It was a statement, not a question. The way that she looked at him, he was sure of it. She was seeing Fred, just as she said before, and her eyes were full of what he could only describe as love.

But Hermione shook her head and an almost sad smile took over her lips. She stood on her toes and before George could react kissed him on the lips. Hers were warm, and soft, and George felt that black coil disappear to be replaced with something almost… light. So different from anything he had felt since that fated day his brother was torn from him.

The next words from her lips were ones he never realized that he wanted to hear, but their affect was profound and true.

"I love you."


End file.
